


i wanna ruin our friendship (we should be lovers instead)

by fandomnerd



Series: Arrowverse Birds of Prey AU [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman (Comics), Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexuality, F/F, Friends to Lovers, and there's finally kissing!, babs has a Type, laurel has been oblivious to her own bisexuality for a Really Long Time, past-Barbara Gordon/Alex Danvers, past-Laurel Lance/Pieter Cross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 15:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6526144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomnerd/pseuds/fandomnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurel and Babs finally get their acts together, with some (vaguely) helpful prodding from their friends.</p><p>Written both as a fuck you to the arrow writers, and as a celebration of Laurel's birthday!</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanna ruin our friendship (we should be lovers instead)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Jenny by the Studio Killers (although I highly prefer Lily Sevin's version and you should go listen to it)
> 
> Unbeta'd because I was impatient to get this posted, but I think it should be fine.
> 
> Happy birthday Dinah Laurel Lance!! Arrow didn't deserve you, and now that they've killed you off I get to keep you in my fluffy self-indulgent au forever and you can finally stop Suffering

**June 2018**

 

 

Laurel was in trouble. Big time, capital T, Trouble. And Thea would _not stop laughing_. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Thea choked out between bursts of laughter, “but you can’t blame me. This is too good.”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “I’m glad my sexuality crisis is so hilarious to you.”

Thea recovered just enough to shoot Laurel a very deliberate Look. “Sexuality crisis? Come on, Laur. It’s been _years_ , don’t you think it’s time to own up to that crush you had on Felicity? Attraction to women can’t possibly be a new thing to you.”

“What? I—I never, I just. What?” Laurel sputtered.

“Oh _please_ , everyone knew. Well, except Felicity. Seriously, did you _not realize_ that you were pining over her for like three years?”

Laurel sat in silence for a full minute, reviewing every thought about Felicity she’d had back in Star City, every interaction they’d had.

“Well, fuck.”

Thea laughed again. “So now that you’ve realized that you’re actually a giant bisexual—which, for the record, I thought you had realized _ages_ ago or I really would’ve pointed it out sooner—what are you gonna do about the Babs situation?”

Laurel sighed dramatically and flopped backwards onto the couch. Thank god Cass and Steph had gone out to a movie tonight, because Laurel would never have heard the end of it if Steph were here to see her acting so much like a lovesick teenager.

“I don’t _know_ what to do. This doesn’t really change anything. Sure, I know Babs is bi, but the only other woman I know she’s dated is Alex Danvers—so I’m probably not even her _type_.”

Thea stared at her in disbelief. “How can you be such a nerd and still be so _dumb_ oh my god. Do you…do you seriously not see the similarities between yourself and Alex? Older woman, big sister-slash-momfriend, hella badass hand to hand fighter?"

Laurel groaned and burrowed her head into a throw pillow. “That’s even worse. I don’t want to be her rebound, or someone she’s with because I remind her of her ex.”

Thea heaved a heavy sigh. “You know that’s not what I meant. And you _know_ you could never be a rebound to Babs any more than she could be your rebound from Pieter.”

Laurel sighed and sat up. “I guess you have a point. This is all purely hypothetical anyway. I still don’t know if she even has feelings for me like that. And even if she does, you know Babs—she’s all about practicality. If our relationship even had the slightest chance of getting in the way of our work, she’d never even give it a shot.”

Thea shot her a sympathetic smile and put a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. “I get it. I do. But you’ll never find out how she would react unless you actually talk to her about this.”

Laurel put her head in her hands. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right.”

Thea gave a sunnily smug smile. “When am I not?”

 

 

 

 

 

Babs was in _serious_ trouble. And if Helena didn’t stop snickering, she was going to chuck one of her escrima sticks at her face.

“Why did I ever think talking to you about this would be a good idea?” She muttered, mostly to herself.

Helena responded anyway. “Because your only other option was dickiebird, which would’ve meant putting up with his pining puppydog eyes.”

Babs sighed. “Right. That. That might’ve almost been preferable, at this point.”

Helena gave an exaggerated pout. “Ouch, that really hurts. Here I am, being incredibly supportive of your big gay crush on Laurel, even if you getting together means I will be a third wheel _all the time_ , which I promise you is not something I enjoy. And you don’t even appreciate it.”

Babs rolled her eyes. “Somehow you have failed to grasp the most crucial piece of information here, which is that however I may feel about Laurel, the fact is that she is _incredibly_ straight.”

Helena shot her a pitying look. “Oh, honey.”

Babs narrowed her eyes. “Don’t ‘oh, honey’ me. Laurel is the straightest person I’ve ever met.”

Helena clicked her tongue. “You really need to get your gaydar checked. Girl definitely likes men, but if you really think she’s not into women at _all_ you’re way more oblivious than I gave you credit for.”

Babs shook her head. “Look, I get it, Laurel visited you in prison and had faith in you, and you played pretend girlfriends for a month starting literally as soon as you got released. I get why you’d make certain assumptions. But Laurel’s my _best friend_ —I know her better than anyone. I would know if she were…interested in women in that way.”

Helena rolled her eyes and rose to her feet. “Well, this has been fun, but I’m not particularly in the mood for being patronized to tonight. If I were in the mood for that, I would’ve given Oliver a visit. So I’m gonna go. Believe me or don’t believe me—I really don’t care. But _I’m_ not the one making assumptions, here.”

She strutted out of the room with a casual flip of her hair, and Babs sat for a moment and considered whether they _really_ needed her on the team, and whether or not she was willing to make an exception to the no-killing rule. Ultimately she decided against it—no matter how annoying Helena was, she did occasionally have her uses.

She slumped back with a sigh. Helena didn’t know what she was talking about. Sure, sometimes Laurel did or said things that implied attraction to more than just men, but Babs would hardly be the first queer woman on the planet to misinterpret a straight female friend’s totally platonic behavior because of wishful thinking.

Babs groaned and rolled over to her workstation. Some good, old-fashioned coding sounded like exactly what she needed right now. 

 

 

 

 

 

This was ridiculous. Laurel was a grown adult, and she could handle this. She just had to go and tell her best friend that she was pretty sure she was in love with her, but hey, if Babs didn’t feel the same way or didn’t want to act on it, that was fine too. Easy-peasy.

Except for the part where her legs wouldn’t move and she was pretty sure she was going to throw up. 

Babs glanced up at her from her workstation, brow furrowed in concern. “Laurel, you okay? You seem…off.”

Laurel steeled herself, straightening her spine like she was about to walk into a courtroom. “Babs, we need to talk.”

Babs’ furrow deepened, but she nodded. “Alright.”

Laurel knew it was probably polite to sit, but she had too much nervous energy for that. She paced along the length of the room, instead. “The past few weeks—no, the past few _months_ have been difficult for me. Even since before we met face to face, we’ve been so close, and once we met in person we just _clicked_. And I’ve never had that with someone before, that closeness, so I just took it all at face value. But now…recently I’ve been looking more honestly at my own feelings, and I realized that I don’t just think of you as a friend.”

Barbara’s face had shifted into something more unreadable than the Oracle mask she used for her internet presence. “What are you trying to say, Laurel?”

Laurel took a deep breath and spun around to face Babs. “I think I’m in love with you, Babs. And not in that ‘platonic life-partner’ kind of way that we always joke about. I mean I have romantic feelings for you.”

Babs didn’t respond for a long moment, and Laurel felt a surge of panic that she’d done something wrong, screwed up the great thing they’d had going. “If you don’t—” her voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. “If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. We can go back to the way things were. I have no problem being professional about this. I just…” her whole body sagged, defeated. “I just wanted you to know.”

Babs no longer looked at her with unreadable eyes, simply an expression of deep confusion and slight disbelief. “But Laurel, you’re straight. You’re possibly the straightest person I know.”

Laurel stiffened. “You don’t get to decide that, Babs. Sure, I didn’t realize I was into women until recently, but that doesn’t make those feelings any less valid—“

“No, I know, I’m sorry, that’s not how I meant that. I just meant, I never even imagined…” Babs trailed off. She seemed dazed, lost inside her own head. Laurel sighed and finally sat on the couch near Babs.

“I get that it’s a shock. It was a shock to me too. But that doesn’t change the facts, here. I guess what I need to know is, do you have romantic feelings for me too?”

That seemed to startle Babs out of her daze. She looked at Laurel incredulously. “Wait, _that’s_ the part you’re unsure of?”

Laurel pursed her lips in confusion. “…yes?”

Babs barked out a humorless laugh. “Laurel, please. I’ve had feelings for you for so long I can barely even remember when they started. But you’ve been so firmly in the Straight Best Friend box, you’ll need to give me a moment to adjust.”

Laurel nodded, ignoring the warmth bubbling up in her chest. Babs having feelings for her had no bearing on whether or not she wanted to _act_ on those feelings. “Of course.” Laurel reached out and grabbed Barbara’s hand on instinct, only realizing a second too late that that was probably not a good idea right now. When she tried to retract her hand, however, Babs tightened her grip, refusing to let Laurel go.

Laurel smiled. She was starting to get a clearer picture of what was happening—Babs had a tendency to get caught up in her own head, overanalyzing and evaluating, even when the rest of her had already made its decision. Usually what she needed when this happened was something to ground her, bring her back to the moment.

Laurel took approximately one full second to think about her next actions, then said screw it. It wasn’t like this could make anything _worse_.

She slid off the couch so that she was standing on her knees, facing Babs. Barbara didn’t react aside from shifting her grip on Laurel’s hand to one that would be more comfortable in this new position. Babs’ face was set in the exact expression that she usually wore when she was writing or editing particularly complex code, and it made Laurel want to kiss her.

So she did. Her free hand clutched the arm of Babs’ wheelchair for balance as she leaned forward, and she shut her eyes before she could see the way Barbara’s widened. And then they were kissing. For a long moment Babs didn’t react, didn’t do _anything_ aside from sit there, stiff as a board. Laurel, feeling distinctly rejected, was about to pull back when Babs finally reacted, sinking into the kiss like she’d been waiting for this for months. Which, Laurel guessed, she kind of had.

When they broke for air, Babs was smiling in a sort of goofy way that struck Laurel as particularly hilarious. It was absurdly endearing. “Do you believe that I’m not straight, now?”

Babs rolled her eyes. “Yes, I get it, I was wrong, please tell me you’re going to let that go at some point.”

Laurel smirked. “But it happens so _rarely_.”

Babs sighed. “Do you want to keep kissing, or do you just want to make fun of me for the rest of the day.”

Laurel snickered and kissed Babs again. “I don’t see why I can’t do both.”

Babs groaned and lowered her head so her forehead rested on Laurel’s shoulder. “Stephanie’s been a bad influence on you.”

Laurel, filled with the kind of warm happiness she hadn’t felt in years and hadn’t imagined she’d ever get to feel again, just laughed.


End file.
